Schools, community schools and groups in the region are invited to take part in five creative projects which shine a light on all the languages learned and spoken by children and young people.
The five Festival creative multilingual projects on offer this year come with teaching resource packs and can be delivered across the whole school community and with multiple groups.
Click on the images below to find out more, how to register and get involved up to the end of March.
Each of our five creative projects culminate in a celebration of children and young people’s creativity, with ebooks of children’s writing and drawings, a video compilation of performances of the Festival Song and for the origami world friendship project, an exhibition of their creations on public display at Newcastle Civic Centre.
Celebrating linguistic diversity helps empower children and young people from diverse backgrounds have pride in their identity, embrace their home languages and inspire them to learn more languages – as well as sharing their languages, culture and heritage with their peers and teachers.
All children and young people taking part can can express themselves in creative and fun ways.
For the world friendship project, children and young people from the region and across the world will share messages of love, friendship and unity.
Sing, sign and play the Festival Song: Love is the Only River 6th January to 31st March
North East schools and groups (ages 7-18) are invited to sign, sign, play, perform and film different language versions of the song: ‘Love is the only river’. Compilation video of performances will be shared.
Together we fly! World Friendship origami project 6th January to 31st March
North East schools, community schools, schools internationally (ages 5-18). Children and young people will create colourful origami butterflies with messages of friendship and be part of our public art exhibition.
Mother Tongue Other Tongue poetic writing project 6th January to 31st March 2025
North East and Tees Valley schools (ages 7-18). Children and young people share poems and drawings in their home language or write an original piece of poetry in a language they learn. Compilation in a digital anthology.
Language Calligrams Celebration and workshop activity 6th January to 31st March
NE schools (7-9 and 9-11 year olds): Create calligrams in any language (other than English) based on words children already know. School certificates for all and ebook with selected entries.
World Recipe Book: exploring food and cultural heritage 6th Jan to 31st March
NE schools, youth and community groups: Share recipes in languages (other than English) and why these are important to different cultures. Digital recipe book will include selected entries.
As well as these five creative projects, there are also 15 separate classroom activities available with pre-recorded videos and/or teaching resources, with a wide range of activities across world languages and cultures, as well as languages taught in schools – from Early Years to A level.
Click here to explore all the creative multilingual projects and all classroom activities, as well as Festival competitions.
The Festival is part funded by the North East Combined Authority
